I'm all about ugly food, or, as they say in Portugal, fruta feia, which actually means ugly fruit. It may not be sweeping Europe, but it's growing in Lisbon. It's good because, in a very small way, it helps ensure that less food is wasted. In Europe, according to a Swedish and Dutch report, the amount of wasted food comes to 89 million tons a year.

I can't find an equivalent figure for the United States, but the USDA says that 31 percent of our food goes uneaten.

What the ugly-food people do is comb markets for provisions that other people might reject - tomatoes with torn skin, yellowing spinach, zucchinis so large and misshapen that getting them home would be a challenge.

They like apples with bruises and discolored plums. Appearance doesn't matter; taste matters. By using the ugly food that people won't buy, they're thinking globally and acting locally. Hey, it may be a cliche, but it's still a good strategy. A drop in the bucket, maybe, but if we have enough buckets ...

I'm sure you waste food; I think we all do. We buy something we end up not cooking, and finally it becomes too ancient to be edible. We have cans of bean dip and garbanzo beans and (a representative from my own larder) chipotle peppers in adobo sauce that are years, sometimes decades old.

We have been trained to consume, and we do. We can consume more frugally, and I am attempting to do that, but, you know, guilty as charged.

One thing that's out of my control, though, the subject of rants to my spouse and others: portions at restaurants. When we drove across the country a few years ago, I noticed that as we proceeded eastward, the portions got large and larger.

I was served a breakfast in Wisconsin that must have been 10,000 calories, carbs and fats by the long ton, even some real whipped cream upon demand. (Wisconsin is dairy country.) There was toast and waffles. It had many things the menu didn't mention. Home fries? I didn't finish the damn thing, of course; I barely started it. So I became a food waster, except really it was the restaurant's fault.

Breakfast in restaurants is often a source of waste. In the Bay Area, things can get awfully cute at brunch: orange slices and radish flowers and an organic bagel on the side. If restaurants would cut down on portions, gosh darn it, then we could stop wasting so much food. Fifty million people in this country are "food insecure"; we can at least eat a brown banana.

In other news: We note the growing influence of right-wing nationalist parties in Europe. They are against immigration, many of them believing that their native country is being polluted by foreigners - even if the foreigners have been there for several generations.

The rebels also dislike the European Union. Down south, they blame it for mandatory austerity packages imposed after their nations essentially went bankrupt. The countries in Northern Europe feel that the EU stifles their economic interests, with all its rules and regulations.

And the EU coddles those foreigners. Movement within EU borders is virtually unhindered. Those people can go anywhere. The campaign rhetoric was fiery, and in many low-turnout elections, the nativist parties showed surprising gains.

Well, swell. Anyone remember why the EU was started in the first place? One big reason was that European countries had made it a habit to go to war with each other. Nationalist sentiment created tensions between nations. Armies crossed borders in an effort to right some ancient wrong. Empire-building leaders came into power.

The Hundred Years War, the Thirty Years War, Napoleon and all that, the Kaiser, a couple of world wars - it kind of wasn't working out for Europe. So the nations decided to come together peacefully so that it wouldn't happen again.

And now it's happening again. A vocal group in each country wants to erect borders and quarrel with neighbors. Such a bad idea.

Not only that: I have been reading about the latest nuttiness in Texas. Very, very right-wing Republicans, some righter than the Tea Party that supports them, are claiming or are about to claim local offices around the state.

Some of these guys are buffoons, but no one in the state seems to be calling them on their amazing nonsense. Lord, how I wish Molly Ivins were still alive. She died in 2007, much too soon, and she loved nothing better than skewering politicians. She once said of a Texas congressman: "If his IQ slips any lower, we'll have to water him twice a day."

She also said this: "Practice, practice, practice, that's what Texas provides when it comes to sleaze and stink. Who can forget such great explanations as 'Well, I'll just make a little bit of money, I won't make a whole lot'? And 'There was never a Bible in the room'?" She was funny, and she told the truth.

Enough with the garnishes, already. Save yourself money and us time.

"Oh, don't bother me," said the Duchess; "I never could abide figures!" And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a sort of jcarroll@sfchronicle.com.